I hand washed all our clothes in the outside sink. If felt so exotic and fun the first few times!
This is the neighbor Alice (he is a boy) who is a chef. We hired him to come cook dinner for us. He came by and asked what we wanted, then bought all the ingredients and come to the house to cook it. He made so much we ended up eating leftover for 4 days! It was really extravagant and awesome to have a personal chef. We hired him again for Christmas dinner and invited Ruby and her family over for dinner. I really regret not taking any photos of our Christmas dinner, it just all went by so fast and I didn't think of it until it was too late. But it was nice. The dinner was late and they were early so we played cards and snakes and ladders. Then Ruby informed me that they were going to spend the night! These trips are always full of weird cultural miscommunications, but it was fine, there were enough bedrooms.
Every night a group of caroling kids would come to our gate. We would gather at the gate and join them for jingle bells and we wish you a merry christmas and then just listened as they sang some Filipino songs. We gave them 5 pesos every night for their songs and then they had a little thank you song.
A friend of Rubys came by the house one day to tell her about a house that was for sale. He was mentioning it because her sister has a rich husband and he thought she'd be interested. But when I mentioned it to John he wanted to see it also. It was a beautiful house on a hill surrounded by fruit trees. We wandered around and then sat on the porch to drink a coconut.
Later Ruby took us to Navalas beach. Sadie had fallen asleep in the tricycle so we just snuggled on a bench until my legs fell asleep.
Then she woke up and jumped in the ocean! John and I took turns playing in the waves with her and going for walks down the beach.
Ruby's daughter Gail. She was a teenager and the closest thing to a kid that Sadie had seen for a week, so they bonded right away. Sadie bounced on her and then they spent the rest of the night wrestling and tickling each other on the floor.
Our little drowning rat.
